With the company of the Zangoose, we made our way back to the border between the forest proper and the route, I had returned Mesa and Jungle and Jess returned Velocity as they were exhausted from the fighting and the walk.

As we were leaving them behind to enter the route we stopped and turned back at them. The bigger one had stopped while the younger one was looking at us curiously.

I bowed. “Thank you for the help you gave us. I'm sure if it wasn’t for you I don’t know if we would left there alive.”

The old Zangoose nodded and the younger one smiled, I had noticed that he did that a lot. I expected them to leave when suddenly the bigger Zangoose reached out to the smiling one and gave him a hard tap on the shoulder that made him stumble forward. The surprised Zangoose glared at the other one.

Jess was curious but I had already figured out what the older one wanted when he agreed to escort us through the forest and then back to the route. The younger Zangoose sported a type of lack of confidence that I had only seen before in one other person, Jeremy. The lack of confidence of someone who had an amazing father and thought that he couldn’t live up to him.

Jeremy had wanted to follow his father's profession as an archeologist. However, archeology is a dangerous profession as ancient ruins usually had all sorts of dangers, ranging from dangerous crumbling structures all the way up to some ancient and powerful pokemon guarding some ruins.

We, in Johto, still remember that time when a group of archeologists a couple of decades ago found some underground ruin north of Mahogany and were killed by a Glalie that had slept for about three hundred years and was estimated to have lived for about seven hundred years. Jeremy didn’t like that exciting life and decided to live as a librarian. His father took it hard for some years, and just like Jeremy that Zangoose probably lived in the shadow of his father so it was no wonder the older one wanted him to travel.

Jess was clueless still so the Zangoose pointed at the pokeballs at her belt and she glanced down.

“What?” She said, her voice becoming higher the more that she understood what was happening. “You want to come with me?”

The Zangoose nodded warily.

“Yes!” She then threw herself forward and hugged the pokemon whose eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, yes, yes!”

I looked towards the older Zangoose and saw that he also looked amused. Jess stopped celebrating, took out a pokeball from her belt, and offered it to the Zangoose who clicked on the button and was turned into red and swept into it.

When she released the Zangoose again her turned around and hugged his father, who looked surprised but soon hugged him back. I heard Jess sniff.

The three of us walked back into the route, and when we looked back the older Zangoose had already disappeared.

We reached our camp, now with the Zangoose who was looking around curiously. We checked our things and everything was in place, thankfully. I would not be blindly patriotic and say that Johto was perfect. There were trainers who said that they had their stuff stolen from their camps.

Sometimes it was a ghost playing a prank, but sometimes other trainers were stealing your stuff.

In the middle of our camp, where we lit a fight yesterday to make food, were some stumps of trees around it that we used to sit down. I approached one and sat down.

“Sit down.” I motioned for the stump in front of me on the other side of the extinguished fireplace.

She quietly sat down on the stump.

I looked into her eyes but she diverted them to the side. “why did you go off route?”

“I thought it would be fine to go just a little bit to fight some pokemon.”

“Quake had just recovered from fighting a powerful Scyther, you only have two pokemon, you went in without notifying anyone and you almost killed your pokemon and possibly yourself getting involved in a situation you had no stake in,” I said while counting the facts in my fingers. “ You checked all the boxes of stupidity, you know that.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

I sighed. “It was a good thing actually that the Zangoose stopped me from screaming at you more.” Her face twisted into confusion. “I'm not your family. I'm not your guardian and I still don’t view you as a friend. You’re a trainer now, a semi-adult as far as the Regions are concerned. I don’t have any right to scream at you and going off-route or not is your decision.”

She stayed in silence, wondering what’s the point I'm trying to make.

“But there are things I can manage... If you do something like that again, I will travel alone from now on and I will recommend to the rest of the group to take you out of it.” She finally looked into my eyes and glared with something akin to defiance. “You were lucky that you were traveling with me, but if you were traveling with any other of the kids… Some of them might not have gone after you but some might and then not only you killed yourself and your team. You also killed them and their team.”

Her glare melted and she dodged my eyes again to look down.

“And if their families ask me if there was anything I could have done differently to make sure their children were alive? I would have to tell them that yes and that I knew how dangerous you were to t­—"

“I understand,” she said with a quiver, “I understand, so please stop.”

“... I hope we don’t need to have this conversation a second time because there is not going to be a second time… I'm going to make breakfast for my team, did you guys eat already?”

"We already eat before leaving.”

I nodded, stood up and walked to my side of the camp to begin making our food. Some time later when the bowls were full of Pokéfood and the treats were ready I released my team, all four of them now, to eat.

Cape’s exoskeleton was bruised both in front where he took the hit from the Seviper’s body and from the back where he released the output of the clumsy Counter on the poor tree, not to mention his mangled arm, which made it so that I had to feed him, despite that, the bug pokemon’s smiled as if he had just watched a great Conference match. Mesa and Jungle, on the other hand, were fine, just tired from the fight. Mesa especially since he never had to use so much psychic energy. As for our newest companion…

I turned my attention to the little pokemon as she walked from one side to the other checking everything in the camp. The first thing she had done when I released her from her pokeball was swept the dirt and dust from the things on the camp, not that our camp was dirt… At least when compared with Jess’ camp.

Now she was running around seeing everything that she could. As a wild pokemon, she might have seen humans walking through the forest but she probably didn’t know what was a hammer, a cell phone, or a pen.

I spun my pen on my hand as I turned my gaze back down to the worn journal in my lap. The journal was opened in the last two pages. I wasn’t going to use the pen, of course, as there was not a lot of space to write in this journal. The action was more of an exercise to distract me while I thought.

After looking again at the two pages I dismissed most of the names. Names that recalled ice, rock, desert, ocean, lake, and beach were all rejected. But there was a section specifically for pokemon found in forested areas. A Minccino’s name, just like the pokemon itself, was full of possibilities so I grabbed a lone sheet and wrote the four names that most called me.

I looked over as the Minccino, on top of a rock, was trying to sweep the floating Mesa with her tail and becoming increasingly mad as the dirt on the pokemon made of soil wasn’t falling from him.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Minccino.” She looked over at me. “Baltoy are made of soil, you’re practically trying to skin him alive.”

She looked from me to the Baltoy and then her eyes widened and she nodded. Before she left in search of a new cleaning target I called her over and she approached, followed by Mesa who seemed to like his new companion.

“I think you already met everyone right? Cape, the Heracross, Jungle, the Bulbasaur and Mesa, the Baltoy?”

She nodded. “Minccino.”

“You also saw that everyone has a name, right? They have a pokemon line but they also have a name which is unique for each of them.”

“Min.” The Minccino nodded again.

“And now that you’re part of the team, you also need a name.” She seemed to think for a moment and then nodded again this time slower. “Minccino are normal type pokemon, and normal type pokemon are synonymous with one word, you know what that word is?”

The Minccino shook her head and leaned forward. I noticed that my other pokemon had begun to get close, they probably heard when I said “name” and were curious about what the little pokemon would get.

“The word is a possibility. A normal type pokemon strength’s, beyond their biological advantages, is that they are the most diverse type in terms of their battle style, learning moves from other types, and even inside the normal type moves there was a lot of diversity by itself,” I said, “so it’s natural that even finding a name for you would be hard as there are so many options. But I was able to narrow it down to three. Which of them is going to be your name I will leave it to you, all right?”

The Minccino was enthusiastic and nodded rapidly. “Minccino, Minccino.”

I also rapidly explained to her that the team’s name was linked to landscapes and sceneries, which she seemed to like.

I raised my thumb. “The first option is Forest. That is the name you might choose if you want to you want to honor the place that you came from. You’ve come from Ilex Forest, one of the roughest forests in the world, and in there, twice you showed courage by trying to defeat a pokemon way stronger than you.”

The little pokemon shook her head hard and I shrugged. It makes sense, it wasn’t like she defeated the Seviper or even struck her. I thought the Baby Doll's eyes were nice but maybe she didn’t feel the same... And also the forest was where she was cast away by her family, she might not want to be reminded of that.

I raised my index finger. “The second option is Meadow. A meadow is an open field, often created by us, humans. I thought you might like it because meadows are famous for being used to produce many things and just as a meadow can produce many different things, hay, fodder, or livestock, we can lean on your aspect as a normal type and craft you into a versatile combatant. Someone who can use and do a little of everything on the battlefield. What do you say?”

She spent some time thinking about it. I wouldn’t rush her, of course, choosing your name is a big decision. In the end, she shook her head and made some gestures that I was able to understand after some time and help from Cape. She didn’t want to be a versatile combatant.

I then raised my three fingers. “All right. The last one is Hill. It’s a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. You know… your line, for us humans, is considered a “bad” line.” The Minccino's eyes widened in surprise. “People look at you and then compare you to a dragon, or fire, or water, or any other type, and then decide that Minccino and Cinccino to not up to that standard. That at most you are to be used as a house pokemon or as a pokemon to entertain the children… A pokemon not fit to fight”

Legendaries. It hurt to speak those words and then look at the bright and big eyes of the Minccino dim in dejection. I stopped a little to let it sink in. “Min…”

“But… A hill is a place that reaches high. That challenges people to climb to climb it. If you want to, you can choose this name as a promise for the people who will doubt you, and then, in the future, you can prove that you can reach high.”

She looked down and stayed in silence for longer than when the meadow, of course, she thought that there weren’t only three options.

“There is a fourth one.”

She looked up and one of her eyebrows rose in curiosity.

“You wanted to show to the other Minccino that you were capable of defeating the Seviper, right?”

She nodded. “Minccino.”

“And you are also the smaller of them all, right?” She glared at me and I smiled at her.

“You wasn’t going to win against the Seviper but that just showed that you were the most courageous of them all, the smallest and also the bravest… There is a low area in the middle of hills and mountains, the lowest location between high positions. Amongst those Minccino you were the smallest… But you can become the strongest. You will show them, the Minccino and the people, that even while being the smallest of a small line, you still will be a powerful pokemon. If you choose this name I will teach you how to defeat that Seviper and then defeat even stronger pokemon than that… You might never be an overwhelming dragon or an explosive fire type but you can have the beauty of a sword.”

The Minccino's eyes narrowed and a small smile twisted itself into her mouth.

“You want to hear the name?”

She eagerly nodded.

-

“Cape is looking pretty strong, right?” Jess idly commented as we watched Cape spar against a team composed of Quake, Velocity, and Blade, Jess’ Zangoose. Four days had passed since our encounter with the Seviper and we were east of Timber Town, the small town at the end of the Ilex Forest route, doing some last-minute training before leaving the city and taking the Sea Route.

The next days of traveling through Ilex Forest were boring compared to what happened that day.

We soon after arrived at the post of the rangers, gave them the Seviper, and explained what had happened. The rangers were surprised that we were able to capture a pokemon that had a move like Sword Dance, even if it was weak, and appreciated our help by giving us some money as recompense for the capture.

We also had Cape looked over by their healing staff and they had given him a localized healing on his arm to accelerate the process but otherwise said that he was going to be all right and would just experience some discomfort because of the poison energy still running on his body.

Not even an antidote made miracles after all.

With Cape healing my other pokemon battled more. Jess battled twelve times and won eight times. And I battled seven times and won six times, two times Mesa won, three times Jungle won, and Valley won one and lost another. I was actually offered nine battles but didn’t feel like accepting the three offers from two-year trainers, since Cape was still recuperating I didn’t want to fight with another one of my pokemon just to lose and have to wait for them to recover as well.

Now that Cape was fully recuperated I had him do some light training yesterday and today he had proved what every trainer was told and knew in theory but saw only once they became a trainer.

A pokemon grows stronger proportionally to the difficult challenges it encounters.

Jungle, Mesa, Quake, and Velocity had experienced an improvement in their growth as fighters the very next day after fighting in Ilex Forest, I suspected that even Valley had. They were stronger, quicker, and were learning and mastering their moves faster after the encounter with the three Seviper, but Cape, who had only begun training normally yesterday, had simply left them in the dust already.

His reaction time was off the charts and his new mastery of Counter allowed him to do some things that five badge pokemon were capable of, even though he hadn’t trained with it again until today. He was already a little stronger than Quake before but today he easily won against him, and then won against Quake and Velocity, then won against Quake, Velocity, and Blade. And now was fighting equally against them without using type energy.

He easily dodged Velocity’s Quick Attack, Quake’s Sand Attack and Sand Tomb that threatened to engulf him, and also Blade’s Fury Swipes and Hone Claw. Only to come back at the smallest of openings to deal hit after hit that left them stumbling back in pain, again, without using any move or type energy.

We still hadn’t tested Aerial Ace but it was safe to say it would be hit a lot harder than before.

“Yes,” I finally responded after some time of watching Cape still beating the three. “It seems that Cape won a lot on that fight and that a broken arm was a good price for it… You know what upsets me the most Jess?”

“What?”

“Other trainers are going to look at Cape and ask themselves why he is so strong… And if they find out that the reason is that we went and fought a wild and powerful pokemon off-route.” I turned my head to her. “They are going to have another proof that going off-route is the best option and will put themselves in danger because of us.”

She stayed in silence and, after a while, I turned towards where Jungle, Mesa, and Valley were.

Jungle had gotten the hang of Seed Bullet and next on his list was Leech Seed and Growth. Making a Leech Seed was more difficult than Bullet Seed since it had a more complex structure, so he was sitting down on the grass and working on that now.

Mesa and Valley were a little more to the side. The Baltoy was helping train the Minccino by using his telekinesis to throw rocks at her, and she was trying to master Pound by using it on her tail to strike them away.

I hummed. When the Minccino evolved into Cinccino she would have access to the special oil that Cinccino produces all over their body.

That oil could be used as skin treatment but its main usage as a biological defense mechanism of the Minccino line was to make the Cinccino able to sweep type energy away. When I reached the city the first thing I looked at was how the people in the Western Continent used Cinccino in battle and to my surprise some middle-level trainers used them, primarily as a switch or a buffer pokemon, which was not what Valley was going to be.

But they developed enough the oil usage of the Cinccino to a point where they were able to bat away things like Energy Ball, Thunderbolt, or even physical moves filled with type energy like Brick Break, but they never seemed to put a lot of work refining that ability to the limit.

What would a Cinccino be able to do with that biological ability if trainers treated it as the Teleport of the Abra line or the Aerokinesis of the Dratini line? Would it be able to bat away a Draco Meteor? How could we make it work against a move like Solar or Charge beam? Interesting questions.

I looked at my watch, nine in the morning.

We finished the training and prepared a quick bite before we took the road. As I was eating I opened my laptop to write to the group about our progress. Jess and I decided to not tell the others about the Seviper situation just yet and wait to speak in person with them in Violet, to make sure they didn’t try something similar.

I was about to begin typing when I noticed that I had received an email from Jeremy yesterday. I opened it and began to read. My eyes began to widen as I read the four paragraphs of text.

Jess noticed my shock and left her team to come talk to me. “What happened?”

I looked up at her eyes. “It’s an email from a friend of mine in Azalea… Bugsy lost his Scizor and Shuckle in the battle against the Coalossal.”